Britney: Inside the Dream

Then, using the big toe of her right foot, she pulled the trigger.

Emma Jean Spears—Jamie’s mum and the grandma Britney would never know—had long imagined and planned this suicide. It was shortly before 4pm on 29 May 1966, the baking sun was out and she’d simply wanted the pain to end, having never come to terms with the loss of her baby son, Austin Wayne, nine years earlier in March 1957.

She had fought depression ever since, while trying to maintain a home for her three other sons and a daughter, and her husband, a former juvenile officer with the Baton Rouge Police Department. Britney’s grandfather, Austin Spears Sr, told the local coroner that his wife grieved the loss of their son and had attempted suicide on three previous occasions.

The suicide made the front-page of the 10-cents-a-copy Kentwood News on 2 June 1966 under the headline: ‘Find Body at Grave of Infant Son’. No one in the community understood how Emma Jean could take her life to be with the three-day-old baby boy she’d lost, leaving her four other living children, including Jamie, then aged fourteen, without a mother.

Although the tragedy took place fifteen years before Britney was born, it provides an insight into the man and father Jamie would become. In finding compassion for him within this event, there is opportunity to understand why he was so incapable of being a loving father and husband, no matter how much he wanted to be.

Can you imagine how broken Jamie must have felt? The sense of worthlessness and rejection is beyond ordinary comprehension. We don’t know how close he was to his mother, but her leaving him in these circumstances would be a significant trauma. How could he not take such an event personally?

Pure, healthy maternal love is ordinarily the most important love from the primary caretaker, but his mother’s love abandoned him. So his auto-response was likely to be: ‘If Mum can leave me like that, what does that say about me?’ It sends a misleading message that he’s not loveable and not worthy, and becomes a source of great pain. Not only that, but if his mother was depressed for the nine years since her baby’s death, she may have been emotionally and physically distant from the time he was six: as Jamie was emotionally and physically distant with Britney. Is this the reason why?

When a trauma like this happens, then future relationships can be affected because Jamie associates love with this trauma. Being attached to a woman could make him fear loss again; that if his mother could drop out of his life, so could his wife. This would leave him in a perpetual state of anxiety. The births of both Bryan and Britney trigger the memory of the birth of the brother who died—the event that led to his mother’s suicide. He’ll therefore equate birth with death, and this is what most likely tips him over the edge. In many respects, his responses were borne out of an intense fear of losing Lynne and his children. It wasn’t the absence of love that meant he couldn’t show up as a father or husband; it was the presence of immense pain. His behaviour, therefore, requires compassion because it was an addiction with its roots in a tragedy that wreaked havoc within him.

For a good time after the birth of their third child, Jamie-Lynn, Jamie was ‘dry’. His exertions were applied to the gym. It was also here that Britney would wander in. Men in mid-work out, pumping iron to the sound of country music, still remember her switching the music to pop, dancing on a mat. Members objected but Jamie smiled, letting her be. As for the piece and quiet of the steam room, men would be sitting in their swimming trunks when Britney entered in her bikini. One ex-member recalled: ‘She knew how to empty that room! She was doing vocal coaching at the time so she’d screech opera notes. It was like listening to someone gurgling water!’

Jamie’s friends believe he deserves compassion, not judgement. When he drank, there was no stopping him but his sacrifices for the good were, they say, equal to his flaws. His life-long friend said: ‘It all started going wrong again when Lynne and Britney went to Orlando. He backed it all the way but he was left alone and became frustrated. Instead, he occupied himself with nights out in Hammond with a bunch of 2 5-year-olds. That man worked damn hard but never had a grip on his life.’

Jamie Spears lets few people close to him. He is a strong, impenetrable southern man. But one acquaintance, who knows him from LA, believes the focus on his alcoholism—as first detailed in Lynne’s memoir—blights the truth of his love for Britney: ‘No-one more than Jamie knows that he messed up, but he believes God gives people second chances. He’s a decent, stand-up guy who refuses to deal in bad business and he doesn’t really care what people think about him. He’s faced tougher battles than contending with people’s opinions.’

According to this friend, Jamie’s home is a shrine to his daughter with her childhood photos reflecting a father’s pride, and perhaps a regret for times lost: ‘You want to see how his face lights up when he speaks about her. He’d spend all day showing you photos, if he could. His favourite memories are the vacations taken in Tennessee. When his mind goes back there, he has a massive grin on his face, and I’ve seen tears well in those eyes of his. He can’t put back what’s gone, but he can make amends.’

The Spears’ family photo albums, and the recollections found within two books by mum and daughter—Heart to Heart and A Mother’s Gift—bury the pain of Britney’s childhood. They were published to run parallel with brand Britney, assisting the Stepford perfect image that was constructed.

When the cracks did show in 2007, and Britney imploded Lynne Spears was already writing a book on her own: Through The Storm. In total, she has co-written two books with Britney, and one on her own, no doubt making her the only mother in showbusiness to pen a memoir before the star herself. It is therefore hard not to draw the conclusion that Lynne is incapable of withdrawing into the shadows.

Perhaps when Britney’s fame turned sour, Lynne felt the need to set the record straight, no doubt in response to a collective media question that asked: ‘Where are the parents in all this?’ Indeed, her memoir provides many rebuttals to the myths she wished to slay.

One such ‘myth’ is that she was the archetypal stage-mom, who pushed Britney into the spotlight. In this regard, she can rightly feel aggrieved. Britney’s ‘performing’ and talents were self-created. Lynne was simply the mother who decided to trust the direction her daughter wanted to go, and hang onto the magic carpet.

But Lynne was always overly keen to publicly celebrate her special mother-daughter relationship. A showy declaration of a mother’s love and pride is not only contained within the pages of three books, it was the very subtext behind Britney’s childhood; a mother who lit up in the light and attention reflected off her daughter’s talents. And this satisfaction would have filled the hole left by her disintegrating marriage.

What Lynne didn’t feel as a wife, she felt as a mother. By her own admission, she says motherhood kept her sane. Her children were her salvation, reinforcing the burden unwittingly placed on young shoulders, and especially Britney’s.

It’s almost as if Lynne felt it was her purpose to find success for her daughter because she felt she’d failed in her own life. Britney was the hope amid the hopelessness. But the danger is that Lynne may have recognised Britney the performer, not Britney the child—her real self. Lynne, quite rightly, would say that she absolutely adored her daughter, provided all the love In the world and raised her correctly. That Is not In doubt. What we are referring to here Is the unconscious elements found In the undercurrents and the emphasis Lynne placed on Britney as a performer.

If the approval, the applause, and ‘look everybody’ attitude Is what greeted Britney’s talents, then that’s the only value Britney will have associated with—the value of being ‘seen’ as the performer. Britney will have noted the sparkle In Mum’s eyes and that would have been the validation she’d sought. In Britney’s mind, performing provides an Illusion that solves everything: It makes her feel stable and makes people around her happy. In turn, all this brings love, praise and hugs. But that mind-set actually becomes a burden because It turns Britney Into a performing doll, performing to keep peace and happiness, as an antidote to the chaos.

The problem Is this: Jamie and Lynne had no Idea who they were as people and so cannot pass down any sense of self, or what that means, to Britney. One of the big ways we all form a sense of self Is through mirroring our environment. Accordingly, she Is being taught to Identify with being a performer and builds a false sense of self. But what Is home and who Is she when not performing? This will be the source of Britney’s confusion and the cause of great anxiety.

Lynne, too, will have realised that she felt good about herself for the first time in ages.

The unmet needs of an adult relationship can lead to a parent going to the child to receive those needs, and that child then feels responsible for those needs. There was almost an unconscious trade-off between Britney and Lynne. The vibe between both of them was, ‘When I’m with you, I feel better’. Britney had another unconscious agenda placed on her—as the source of pleasure, and this further strengthened the development of a performer’s persona. Mum placed her on a pedestal in her own mind, and within the community. I would simply ask, ‘What other aspect of Britney was developed and encouraged away from the performer and her talents?’

Propelled by so many invisible forces, and the personal dream she held, the young girl with the cheesy smile and bright innocence was destined to push beyond Louisiana’s borders. Something always whispered to Britney that her destiny belonged somewhere other than Kentwood. What no one could know was that Mickey Mouse was soon to extend a hand that would pull her to the next level, away from the disorder and towards ‘stardom’.

4 Bridges to Stardom (#ulink_a79d1bf2-82a3-5d08-98df-e11e70ac51a9)

‘It’s just my time to express myself.’

–Britney, Stages, 2007

For one gloriously over-the-top but proud minute, it seemed as if Kentwood would declare a national holiday, such was the genuine excitement around town. But the Council Mayor settled for announcing an official ‘Britney Spears Day’ within the locality. Its talented daughter had been chosen as one of the performing ‘mouseketeers’ for the Disney Channel’s The Mickey Mouse Club, a more razzamatazz version of Britain’s Why Don’t You?.

She had been selected from 20,000 hopefuls after her talents clearly stood out at an audition and judges issued an immediate instruction to sign her up. Such recognition would catapult Britney from Louisiana to Orlando, Florida, where the recording studios were located at Disney World, and where she’d reside alongside Mickey Minnie, Pluto and Donald Duck, to name but a few.

Few locals could comprehend that one of their own had been chosen to star in the 30-minute television show, broadcast daily into homes throughout America. It created a distinct sense of occasion, and Britney had her first taste of merchandise produced in her name: one local made up T-shirts with a Hollywood movie clipboard emblem declaring ‘Britney Spears Fan Club’. An artist hung an ink-portrait of child Britney in a shop window under a ‘Congratulations Mouseketeer’ banner. And a cardboard cut-out Mickey Mouse was posted in the same window, with a cartoon bubble saying, ‘Presenting Britney Spears!’ All around Kent-wood, shop owners displayed messages on their mobile billboards: ‘Disney or Bust!’, ‘Congratulations Britney-We’re Proud of You!’, ‘Disney-bound!’ and, at Buddy’s Seafood Place, ‘Kentwood’s Mouseketeer’.

There was a distinct carnival feel in the air as local newspapers and television covered Britney’s achievement in a starry reflection on Kentwood itself. A special ceremony was held on the local sports field, where a large crowd gathered. Britney sang the national anthem and then, according to a report in the Kentwood News, ‘…brought tears to the eyes of all those present when she sang, “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. The Rotary Club’s James Allen presented her a bouquet of roses, and the Chamber of Commerce’s Gerald Broussard presented her with a commemorative plaque. Town mayor Bobby Gill went as far as issuing an official proclamation, which read:

WHEREAS the Walt Disney Corporation has, for the past 30 years, searched the United States for talented young people to become part of the organisation.

WHEREAS this year, for the first time, the state of Louisiana has had a participant chosen, and she is one of ours. We have watched her grow and her talents mature…given with such warmth and noticeable enjoyment.

WHEREAS the people of Kentwood and surrounding area wish to give tribute to this well-deserving young lady as she continues her work in Orlando, Florida.

Therefore, I, Bobby Gill, Mayor of the town of Kentwood, do hereby proclaim, Saturday April 24 1993 BRITNEY SPEARS DAY, and invite everyone to applaud her accomplishments and wish her great things as she takes this next exciting step in her promising career.

Britney was just eleven years old, but long before that momentous day, there would be setbacks, tests of character and leaps of faith, together with hour upon hour of repetitive practice. Whatever propelled Britney, however, turned her into an unstoppable force, breaking down Kentwood’s frontiers.

But before Mickey Mouse, there would be Broadway. Before Broadway, there would be a television talent show. Before the TV show there would be training. And before training, there would be rejection. Looking back in rewind to the journey of Britney’s rise to fame, it all makes sense now: a line of stepping stones that would ultimately lead to the bridge from rural Louisiana to the intensity of that fantasy place called ‘Stardom’. The first stepping-stone was in Atlanta when Britney was eight.

It was 1990 and word reached Kentwood that there was an open audition for The Mickey Mouse Club. Buoyed by her talent contest whitewashes, Britney pleaded to take her chance. Lynne couldn’t say no, despite being heavily—and accidentally—pregnant with her second daughter, Jamie-Lynn—taking both parents’ first names. After an eight-hour drive across the 500 miles, Britney and her mum pitched up in Atlanta, and she’d rehearsed her old favourite, ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’, all the way there. They waited a further eight hours as she lined up to take her turn before theatre and casting director Matt Casella, a talent scout for Disney, who travelled America with his video camera and tripod looking for new ‘mouseketeers’. Britney joined 2,000 other hopefuls to take her three-minute opportunity, wearing a black-and-white striped leotard.

The oh-so-shy Britney—the girl too timid to even sit on Santa’s knee in Christmas grottos—was nervous. It was the same before any contest: her body quivered slightly, her knees knocked, but she maintained focus. Here was a fascinating dichotomy within the young Britney: the painfully shy and seemingly subdued little girl, who needed Mum to be near, versus the little dynamo who had the presence, gusto and confidence to perform out of her skin.

Within reassuring eyeshot, Lynne sat behind Matt Casella, offering constant reassurance. But the moment Britney walked out and took to the floor, the energy shifted within. From a humming generator of nervous energy, she burst into a livewire of performing electricity. She transformed from shy to dazzling in an instant, as if someone had flicked a switch. Like the fictional Billy Elliot, it felt like electricity in her body.

Years later, in her Stages publication, Britney described this switch-moment in her own words: ‘There’s something that comes out of me—like this energy or force. It’s just my time to express myself, to feel the lyric and the rhythm, to go with the music and the moment. I’m running on the adrenaline and the excitement—and the electricity of the audience.’

Britney’s Aunty Chanda was often a fascinated observer of such transformations and said: ‘She just went from this shy, reserved girl who was scared to talk to a stranger, to someone who was on top of the world. It was a like a light turned on inside her.’

The psychotherapist offers an explanation as to why someone can so effortlessly switch from withdrawn to livewire:

Children raised in traumatic environments where there is a lot of shouting and yelling are withdrawn because it is a learned behaviour not to exist too loudly. A child doesn’t want the pain it sees being directed in his or her direction. I suspect that Britney would tell you that she tried to be impeccably behaved or invisible—until she was performing because that’s when she was guaranteed to bring happiness.

In Atlanta, Matt Casella was blown away by what he witnessed, referring to her ‘amazing triple threat’—an industry term for those capable of a multi-professional discipline in singing, dancing and acting. ‘Britney was the most talented eight-year-old I ever auditioned,’ he says on his MySpace page. ‘She was a one-of-a-kind kid with the singing, dancing and acting. She did it all and then threw in gymnastics at her final video taped audition for me in Atlanta, just to make sure she showed me all that she could do.’

When her performance stopped, Britney bowed, stood still and then became all coy again, her eyes unsure whether to leave the video camera before darting to catch her mum’s proud gaze. Matt’s video still catches this awkward, yet modest moment as Britney starts to twiddle her long hair, between thumb and forefinger.

‘Great. You always bow?’ Matt is heard asking his protégée. She nods, unsure.

‘Who taught you that?’

‘My mama,’ said Britney letting her hair fall free. ‘She just told me every time I sing, just to bow.’

Matt Casella would have signed up Britney there and then, but after consultation with Disney executives it was felt that, even though she was almost nine, she was too young for a show where the average age of a ‘mouseketeer’ was twelve. The same thing ultimately happened to another nine-year-old in Pittsburgh: Christina Aguilera. It was their first taste of rejection but it was hardly a brutal fall because Matt’s belief and enthusiasm cushioned the blow and he urged both of them to return. In Britney’s case, he reassured her that he would be making a life-changing call on her behalf.